


The Star on my Forehead

by Aemileth



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Ambiguous Writing, Angband, Blood and Torture, Branding, Captivity, Dark fic, Dissociation, Gen, Guilt, Mind Games, Names and their meanings, Psychological Torture, Regret, Sauron Being an Asshole, Sauron being his usual creepy self, Sauron has his own understanding of morality, Scarification, Shame
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 15:36:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29827143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aemileth/pseuds/Aemileth
Summary: In which Maedhros seeks death in a dark, red cell, and Sauron finds a puzzle to solve.
Relationships: Maedhros | Maitimo & Morgoth Bauglir | Melkor, Maedhros | Maitimo & Sauron | Mairon
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	The Star on my Forehead

**Author's Note:**

  * For [znamv](https://archiveofourown.org/users/znamv/gifts).



His cell is deep, dark red. Dried blood in the dark, _the candle light from behind the curtain of his father’s room, waiting to burn out, casting flickering shadows against the wall, claws, all long grasping claws, every one of them, stretching out, creeping forward. To burn, to bite!_

It is so cold. Ice encases his bones, he is frozen to the floor. _What have they done? Dooming their kin from beyond the Ice, where blood runs fitfully in dark internal chambers till it stops altogether and the heart grows cold._ He takes a deep breath and forces it through his body. _It burns!_ _Yes! Rip and mangle whatever wretched thing lays beating in his chest. He deserves far worse._

_Kill me,_ he says, clenching his jaw, grinding what teeth he has remaining. _Bring me death!_

He is on his back and the shadows loom above him, and _those spiral monsters all watch from the corners of his eyes. Damn them!_ He blinks with frosted eyelashes, a warning, a command _. Kill me,_ he says again, lips tearing as the blood crawls slowly down his cheek, joining the trails, the frozen bloody rivers across his face.

_“Oh, why, I wonder, do you wish so terribly for death?”_ speaks some golden figure, edges all curling, all twisting, all flowing. All fire too close to his face, _burning_. 

The cold melts back in submission. The flames devour the rest. 

The eyes watch, looming. 

They’ll release him, eventually. They said. They _promised._

In hushed, barely heard whispers, in soft, tender words that flow like sweet, cooling water over his many, burning wounds. 

He covers his ears because it is too much to bear. He wishes now only for silence. 

Because those words are _poison._ That voice speaks only falsehoods, _dripping with sweet silky enchantments_.

And echoes of laughter linger always longer than his screams. They are clear. They are happy, and laced with the promise of wellbeing, _of safety, of hope and love and magic._

They ring in his head and sing him to sleep. 

_Lies!_ he shouts, but his eyelids are falling, and the dreams lure him into their eager embrace, pulling him under and lower, ever lower. _No, no. But he is falling ever steadily into that abyss. There is no escape. There is no hope. And he cannot remember who he is or what it was that he was supposed to fear. Because there is nothing here. Nothing but the warm quiet darkness, and the endless void._

_“Sleep now, Maitimo. You’ve had enough nightmares for today.”_

*** 

The eyes blink, slowly. They are the only things visible above him--twin gasps of light in this smothering darkness. They cast a sickly gaze upon him, watching, waiting. For what, he does not know. For how long, he cannot remember. Perhaps they’ve always been there, ever present, ever watchful.

He blinks back at them, stirring the whirlpool within his mind. He feels like he is floating. He feels like he is drowning. 

“Would you tell me about your life?” _Maitimo? Russandol? Nelyafinwë? Lovely names. Very noble. Pick one and tell your tale._

He cringes and withers against the cold stone. The icy surface bites into his cheek--a weak distraction from pain and irritation, yet good enough, he thinks, for now. At least to keep him tethered, to keep him present. He has been drifting for too long and he will need his wits about him.

“There are many things said of the famed House of Fëanáro,” the voice continues, curling like warm air within the shell of his ear. “But I always hoped to hear the tale first hand. And surely you, the first born of the great smith himself, would have quite intimate knowledge.” 

_Your Father, Nelyafinwë? What was he like? Were you a good son?_

He gives no response beyond the unsteadiness of his breathing. And that seems a very small thing in the midst of darkness. Once, perhaps, he would have risen up and fought with whatever strength he could pull together.

“Come now,” the voice purrs. A golden finger uncoils slowly from the darkness, _a golden snake, fluid and sleek in motion,_ and it hooks a strand of his hair, illuminating it in warm light. _A tiny flame in the dark. Very red, like a drop of blood._ “You’re safe. You will not be harmed _here_ with _me_.” 

This is a lie. It must be. 

The flesh around his wrists hangs in bloody ribbons beneath barbed steel. The gorges in his face burn and fester with every move. _Kill me, he says. But there is no answer now._

He would laugh if it wouldn’t completely sever the remaining sanity from his mind, and that, he feels, is scarce and fleeting. _He is drifting._

“You insult me, _your majesty_ ,” that creature says, speaking as one who reads thoughts out loud. "To think that I would be so inclined to permit such cruelty, such morbidity and vulgarity in my own home." _But you are no stranger to violence, or so I’m told._ _We shall see._

With two short strides, the creature stands before him, casting a wave of warmth over his body. It raises a long-fingered hand and the shadows scatter back. His dark cell blooms into a red-stone furnace, fire-light licking at the walls and heat thawing his limbs.

He turns his head and shudders. He turns his head and blood smears across the floor. 

The Creature hums. "I see now what troubles you. All that blood? _A terribly gruesome mess, isn’t it?_ You do not remember how this has happened, do you? _Your thoughts have been elsewhere, I think._ Would you like to know? I can tell you so you can remember.” _Nelyafinwë. That is your name, or have you forgotten?_

He hisses. He has no need to be reminded by this creature, _of those Songs of seafoam and blood, of the ghost-trails of the Abandoned_ . He pulls himself up, arms straining against his weight, his sweat tasting bloody flesh and biting back. He raises his head and snarls. _He has not forgotten._

The Creature smiles, eyes alight with twisted wonder, _eyes with pupils that narrow like those of a cat, that widen like those of a goat_ . “ _Yes, I see it now._ You made your father proud that night, Nelyafinwë. _It must have been a sight to behold._ ” It reaches out and traces along the scar that splits his cheek in half, from ear to mouth to chin, _a little red river running anew._

“Yes, you are quite a warrior,” the Creature says, lips parted in a wide, even smile. Those eyes close for a moment, and the being tips back with a sigh. 

The scent of salty ocean air fills the room; _it swirls in his nostrils, the taste of copper tingles on his tongue. He stands with the wind on his face, with the ocean roaring before him, its fury swelling in bloody red tides._

_Red and black. Darkness and blood. Pain mingled brine._

_There is blood in his mouth, on his face, on his hands. There is seafoam lapping at his feet, red and rolling._

_He dances in the sand with a sword raised high, swinging and lashing. His opponent lunges forward, fishing-lance glancing off the stronger, fiercer metal of a sword, yet skimming flesh still. He twists and thrusts and red erupts into the space between them._

_There is an elf dying at his feet, now moaning, now screaming, clutching at his robes and drowning. Blood is dripping from his sword._

_There is blood dripping down from his head, down his cheek, down his neck. His hair flys back and sticks to it, and sharp, stinging pain flares up in his face._

_He is tired, so tired he could fall to his knees. He could fall by this bloody shore and let the water wash away the death that clings to him. Let it drown him in its restless anger, until he is but a distant nightmare that plagues the innocent no more._

_What has he done?_

_Yet he stands and looks out across the sea, across the world, it seems, to where darker lands await. He looks out across a bloody ocean and he feels himself die, as if it is his own life he has taken, and not that of a stranger._

_“Well done, Nelyafinwë, my son,” his father says, laying a hand on his shoulder, a hand that is stained as red as his own. He is smiling through a thousand layers of wrath and bloodstained confidence._

He opens his eyes to the red, red room, to the eyes, to the stench of darkness, to sickly heat, and light that burns. 

“Oh yes, how lovely,” speaks the Creature, taking a deep satisfying breath, as though thoroughly entertained. The eyes blink and focus back on his pitiful form. “I believe I see things a little clearer now, my dear. _A shame-filled heart is far too heavy a burden.”_

It reaches out and draws a claw down his face, down his neck and _continuing_. 

He clenches his teeth and closes his eyes. _Kill me,_ he says, _pleading. Kill me and be done with it._

_Why?_ A taunting laugh. _Why should I?_ The claw sinks slowly into his flesh, trailing down his ribs, and digging deeper, _deeper. You deserve far worse, darling._

He cannot scream, he _will not_ scream. 

“It is a pity. You were _so beautifully violent._ You would have been excellent in the _Darkness._ But far be it from me to hinder feelings of _regret._ Yet, if it is punishment you seek, _atonement for what you have done,_ then there is no greater way than through _pain and suffering_.”

**Author's Note:**

> A birthday fic for my sister, who requested: Maedhros, Sauron, darkness, gore, and other unpleasant things. She asked for it last year, but since I am a procrastinator, here we are, next birthday...  
> Happy birthday, sis! Hope you like it! 
> 
> Warning for darker things in later chapters.


End file.
